 |
Michael Anbar , PhD, is a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo. Formerly a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, he is the author of , published by iUniverse.
|
|
|
|
By Michael Anbar
September 25, 2005
Many voices in academia and in the media have lately questioned the legitimacy of the State of Israel. This has been going on on both British and American campuses in spite of the fact that the one and only Jewish state has been established under the auspices of the UN in 1947. The UN resolution affirmed the League of Nation's 1920 resolution to grant Great Britain a Mandate to help establish a Jewish state in the historical homeland of Jewish people. Yet, although it has been recognized diplomatically by most member states of the UN, including several Muslim states, Israel's legitimacy is still being questioned. In other words, diplomatic recognition seems to be insufficient for academicians who wish to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel.
The state of Israel comprises an overwhelming majority of Jews. The Jewish people constitute a nation with a unique language, religion and extensive literature, as well as a history of 3000 years -- the longest written history of any nation existing today. Like most states, Israel has minorities of people who belong to other nations. The largest among these are Muslim Arabs who belong to the Arab nation, which comprises 22 independent states, ranging from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Most of these Arab states were established as independent states within the last 100 years, not substantially earlier than the State of Israel. However, Israel is the only homeland of the Jewish people, who have lived in that land for more than 3000 years. A major feature of the State of Israel is, therefore, its long history as the homeland of the Jews. No other existing nation can claim such a long historical attachment to scores of towns and villages, shrines and ancient battlegrounds, mountains and rivers, within such a small geographic boundary; the national territory of the Jews people is one of smallest of its kind on Earth.
Based on its historical credentials Israel should be recognized as a state more readily than practically any other state on this planet. It should be recognized not just de facto because it exists, having all the attributes of statehood, but it must be recognized as the unique historical homeland of the Jewish people. Yet, this recognition has been problematic throughout the last 57 years of its politically independent existence. There are still scores of Islamic states that do not recognize the very existence of the State of Israel, not to speak of its extensive historical Jewish past. Moreover, many states that maintain diplomatic relationship with Israel hesitate to recognize it as the Jewish historical homeland. Even the United States, which recognizes Israel de Jure, based on international commitments to create a national home for the Jewish people, does not officially attribute this recognition to the rights of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.
Coming back to academia, it is noteworthy to realize that never before has the academic community questioned the legitimacy of any other existing state. These academicians, some of them Jewish, including even some Israelis, seem to echo Muslims who vehemently challenge the right of Israel to exist.
The sixty year-old Islamic challenge of the legitimacy of the Jewish State is based purely on religious grounds. According to Islam, territory that was conquered by Muslim becomes "Arab land" for perpetuity. Since the land of Israel was once conquered by Arabs in the 7th Century, it has become "Arab land" in Muslims' view. Consequently, Muslims are religiously obligated to object to the establishment of a non-Muslim political entity in this once Islamic province.
Since such a religion-based claim would not be credible in the modern world, shrewd Arab leaders disguised it as an objection to Western imperialism, claiming that the Israelis are Westerner "crusaders" trying to grab and "colonize" "Arab land." This is a ludicrous claim because Jews continued to live in Israel, their homeland, for millennia, being the only surviving natives of the land, very much like Native American Indians or Celts in Ulster. Moreover, half of Israeli Jews are not Westerners but "Easterners" --refugees from Arab countries where they lived for many centuries. In brief, Muslim worldwide animosity to the "infidel" State of Israel that was supposedly established on "Arab land," allegedly "stolen" from the Muslims, is based purely on Islamic religious convictions, as is evident in Islamic sermons held every Friday in mosques worldwide.
The animosity exhibited by Western intellectuals toward the Jewish state is, therefore, surprising indeed. Never before had contemporary secular academicians defended a religious premise or a religion-based political claim. These contemporary academicians, most of whom are agnostics or atheists, seem to defend a religious dogma as if they were medieval Christian clerics. The same "liberal" academicians frown upon fundamentalist Christians who view Israel as God given to the Jews. It seems as if in the view of these professors Islamic fundamentalist dogma triumphs Christian evangelical belief.
It is hard to explain this behavior. Although many academicians and academic institutions are being funded by oil-rich Islamic countries, it is hard to believe that a large segment of the academic community was bribed by Muslims to become their champions. Therefore, their hatred of the Jewish state may be due to inherent hatred of Judaism and Jews.
This animosity is unlikely a perpetuation of Nazi anti-Semitism or of medieval Christian misojudaism (hatred of Jews). It might be due to their pronounced secularism and antagonism to the Church. Because Zionism is an intrinsic aspect of Judaism, these professors consider it to be a manifestation of messianic clericalism, which they detest. Paradoxically their hatred of dogmatic Christian clericalism resulted in their support of Islamic religious dogma.
They fail to realize that Zionism, the urge of exiled Jews to return to their homeland and live there as a sovereign nation -- a feature of Judaism for the last twenty five hundred years -- is basically a political rather than a theological premise. Zionism, unlike messianism, does not invoke divine intervention but human accomplishment. Zionism is therefore similar to Polish or Greek nationalism when their countries were occupied, or to current Kurdish, Armenian or Tibetan nationalism. It is therefore ironic that secular academicians uphold an Islamic religious premise in their attack on the Zionism, which is essentially a political ideology.
From an academic standpoint, a critical approach to the legitimacy of a state is, by itself not a bad idea. This may prevent the creation of political entities, defined as states, which are not rooted in distinct historical, cultural or ethnic realities. States that have no distinct common historical, cultural or ethnic roots are artificial political creations with intrinsic instability (e.g., former Yugoslavia, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia or current Iraq and Nigeria). On the other hand, states that are part of a large conglomerate of small states with closely related history and culture (language, religion) will inevitably merge into larger more stable political units (e.g., Germany, France, Italy).
When it comes to the Jewish State of Israel, there is no dispute that it has distinct historical and cultural roots, and yet its legitimacy is being disputed by academician who should know history and political science. The proposed Palestinian state, on the other hand, so strongly advocated by the same anti-Israeli academicians, presumably offering self-determination to Muslim Arabs who live in Israel's territory, is historically and culturally indistinct from Syria, Jordan, Arabia and the Arab parts of Iraq, as well as Egypt. All these states have been part of a single Arab empire. And they will most likely end up as such eventually under an aggressive Muslim Arab ruler (see Germany or Italy).
This did not happen in the last 70 years because of the competition among local Arab dictators, each of whom has been vying for the hegemony of the "Arab nation." It may, however, happen in the foreseeable future considering the political weakness of the rulers of Jordan, Syria or Arabia.
So what is the political justification for creating another Arab mini-state under another local Arab warlord despot (e.g., Abu Mazen) who has even less grip of his "constituency" than the rulers of Jordan or Syria? The only rationale for the creation of a "legitimate" Arab mini-state of "Palestine" is to make it a tool to eliminate the "illegitimate" state of Israel, which the Arabs have vowed to eradicate. The PLO, the ruling party in the "Palestinian Authority," has been established by the Arab League in 1964 (before the 1967 Six Days War!) with the declared purpose of eliminating the Jewish state.
Arab propaganda has used the "oppression" of Arabs under Jewish rule as another excuse for the elimination of that despised "occupation" or "Arab land." Academicians who bought this propaganda should have been more sophisticated. In fact, according to UN statistics, the standard of living of Arabs under Israeli rule, even in the "disputed territories," is significantly higher than that in most Arab countries. It is amazing that academicians, who are expected to be critical of information presented to them, were blinded when it came to the Arab-Israeli conflict. This brings us back to the inherent antipathy of academia to the Jewish state, which defies a rational explanation.
In summary, politicians may take positions contrary to common sense for purely shortsighted, opportunistic reasons. This is how most of the existing Arab states in the Middle East have been created by the European victors of WWI from parts of the Ottoman Empire in order to prevent a large Arab political entity from being formed ("divide and conquer"). The same politicians have prevented the formation of a politically independent Kurdistan, a legitimate country with distinct historical and cultural roots. However, academicians are expected to have a broader historical perspective. Yet too many academicians seem to support the elimination of the State of Israel by questioning its legitimacy, advocating the creation of an artificial Arab state designed to replace it. All this looks like flagrant politization of academia; something that has been frowned upon by the same professors since the days of Joseph Stalin.
Let us end with another paradox. Academicians are supposed to be the standard bearers of truth. Truth is based in objective facts. In historical studies archeological findings provide such facts. The "Palestinian" Arabs are presently doing their best to destroy archeological evidence for the pre-Islamic presence of Jews in the Land of Israel, especially on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet, we do not hear about British academicians protesting that atrocity perpetrated by the "Palestinian Authority," they seem to support. Nor did these British professors boycott Arab academic institutions for this vandalism that aims destroy historical artifacts of the culture that imbeds foundations of Western Civilization. But the same academicians have been trying to boycott Israeli universities whose faculty opposes yielding to Arab religion-motivated political demands; demands that are part of the assault on the very civilization these professors are part of.
One cannot but wonder whether professorship is always associated with rational thinking.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
